Nico - Desertshore (2023) Hi-Res

The quirky, orchestrated folk-rock of Nico's 1968 debut album, Chelsea Girl, in no way prepared listeners for the stark, almost avant-garde flavor of her 1969 follow-up, The Marble Index. The chanteuse presented an uncompromisingly bleak, gothic soundscape on her second album. Dominated by spare harmonium and Nico's deep, brooding vocals, this album unveiled her singularly morose songwriting (her first record featured none of her compositions). Owing more to European classical and folk music than rock, it found little favor with 1969 audiences. But like the work of the Velvet Underground, it proved to be quite influential in the long run on a future generation of black-clad goth rockers.
1970's Desertshore, co-produced by her Velvet Underground band mate John Cale, like much of Nico's early work, has grown in stature with the passing of time, and alongside Chelsea Girl as some of her most accessible work.

The iconic music journalist Lester Bangs wrote, “The Marble Index is the greatest piece of 'avant-garde classical', 'serious' music of the last half of the 20th century so far,” and the New Yorker recently hailed both records as “austere miracles of will and invention.”